Public Service Announcement: Never Sleep With a Laptop

I am guilty for spending hours in bed with my laptop. And pretty often, I fall asleep with my laptop on my bed. Usually, the computer will go into standby mode after 30 minutes of inactivity. When I woke up this morning, I was shocked to see this huge blister on my hand:

I was puzzled…where did this blister come from? It didn’t look like a spider bite. It didn’t look like any of the crazy skin reactions I get when I’m allergic to something. It looked like a burn…but I didn’t remember burning myself. I reached over to my laptop to update my Twitter feed with a Twitpic (of course!)

I went to my doctors’ office, and confirmed that it was indeed a 2nd 3rd degree burn. I was told to lance the fluid when the swelling got too intense, slather it often in ointment, and keep it covered. It was so oozy that I went through a box of my Band-aids at home within 2 hours. So I headed to Sam’s Club for a bulk box of Band-aids.In doing more research, I found out that burns and fires from overheated computers are quite common. Particularly from laptops in bed. High functioning processors can clock heats as high as 170 degrees F (80* C). That’s enough to cause a burn!

Moral of the story? Don’t sleep with a laptop, no matter how tempting it might be. You’ll just be burned in the morning.

Ah! I knew it. Years ago I went to a series of skin specialists to find out why I got these blisters. I was living in the goldfields, so it could have been any manner of bite or allergen. It was never solved, but now,15 years later, I wake up this morning with 2 of them. They felt like burns, with a slight sting like an infection. I freaked out mildly, as I still have scars from the last series of them. Mostly through a process of elimination, I convinced myself it was a burn from the hot water bottle neck. Your adventure seems to confirm it. Thanks for saving me a trip tot he doctors. I have the homeopathic treatment for burns and will go with that and the cold-and-cover combo.

Wow! I never thought of that. I’m going to start turning mine off at night now!

Shari

This just happened to me, too! Thanks for posting pictures of it, mine looked pretty much the same. I had three other little red dots nearby it, too. It’s day 5, and I think it’s stopped filling up. I was worried it was some sort of bug bite…the pictures that come up on Google are really frightening. Yikes.

i got the same thing but i was at my table eating a bagel with cream cheese jst woke up and when i was eating i felt a burn and i saw it turn to a blister but its the same as this picture

Castiel

Hey! I got two of these in the past week, at first the told me it was a skin condition, but after falling asleep next to the laptop today and getting yet another on my arm I realized that it was the laptop. Were you told to release the fluid at all? It’s quite a big blister and I’m a little concerned.

Anonymous

To Castiel: I had the same thing, I just popped the blister, drained the fluid, put some antibiotic on it, and put a bandaid on it. It disappeared within a week.

Anonymous

It went away within a week? It obviously wasn’t as bad as mine was. Almost 2 years later, I’ve got a significant scar (that only looks as good as it does now because it’s been injected at the dermatologist several times)

Jen

I don’t think you understand how happy this picture made me. Not that I want you to be have suffered or anything, but I fell asleep with my laptop last night and woke up with red circles on my arm… soon, they blistered up really bad and looked EXACTLY like that. I was freaking out because I’m deathly afraid of spiders and everyone kept telling me it was probably a spider bite. Thank you. I love you.

Elijah

lol this just happened to me I couldn’t figure it out until I read this, the only thing I did different that night was fall asleep with my laptop